Dis-Moi, Lune d'Argent
by vifetoile89
Summary: Luna is not a normal girl, especially not at full moon. A story about Luna, her mother, and a few secrets, never to be told. Speculative or Alternate Universe. COMPLETE!
1. New Crescent

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter or Luna Lovegood.

Phase One: New Crescent.

A keen observer will notice something weird about the _Quibbler_. Weirder, I mean, than the obvious.

All other self-respecting newspapers house themselves in big cities, such as London. Where the news happens, where the news goes, that is where journalists set up shop. But not X. Lovegood and P. Lovegood, _née_ Ollivander, founders of the _Quibbler_. Why?

You are a keen observer, and now you want an answer. The answer begins in the October 13, 1987 issue, back when the _Quibbler_ was rooted in London.

In summer and fall of that year, the _Quibbler_ ran coverage on Death Eaters who had never been captured, or were still walking free. Not exactly a popular subject, especially with the Malfoys and Notts of the world. Even the everyday people did not want reminders. Leave it in the past. It's almost Halloween. Put out something _fun,_ for Circe's sake.

But the _Quibbler_ was not concerned with what everyday people thought they _wanted_. The _Quibbler_ was founded on the notion of Truth. The more people know, the more they could protect themselves, help one another, the more magic we can all weave.

This day's report focused on Fenrir Greyback. It published his whereabouts, his methods. An artist's sketch. Greyback, the article said, was a Muggle, born under the name Robert Parker, with no magic except that which the full moon gave him.

Published October 13, 1987.

You might say, come off it, everyone knows the _Quibbler_ is full of utter codswallop. To which I reply, this was before the _Quibbler_ 's staff shrank and declined. This was when the _Quibbler_ was respectable, with reporters who would travel far to seek out the heart of the matter. At any rate, the report, although not widely read, was scrupulously accurate.

A week later, on an unreasonably cold autumn night, Greyback did something unheard of. He entered central London, went right to Marylebone. He found the Lovegood's home, and under a waxing gibbous moon, he stole their daughter away.

)O(

Another question from the keen observer. Not—not _Luna_? Was there another daughter, a sad lost girl, one never spoken of by the living Lovegoods?

No, I mean Luna. Luna whom you've met at Hogwarts, Luna with her wand behind one ear and a paintbrush in her pocket, Luna with no friends.

How is it, then, that Luna lives in the world of people? Odd though she is, she's manifestly not feral. She doesn't live in the woods, and if she eats vermin no one in Ravenclaw Tower has reported it.

The answer is, Pandora, her mother, went into the woods and got her back. She and her husband called in every favor they had to track Fenrir. When they traced him, Xeno whipped up a powerful Deflecting Draft, and Pandora soaked her black cloak in the cauldron. When she wrapped the cloak round and stood in the shadows, she was damn close to invisible. Into the woods she went, and five days after Luna's capture, Pandora emerged again, scratched and hungry, with her daughter in her arms.

But she was too late. Luna was infected.

So that is why the Lovegoods moved out of London. You know as well as I do, parents of werewolf children will likely go distant—say that they have no child, leave the afflicted to beg shelter from the moon—or terribly overprotective. The Lovegoods fell into the latter camp, but, as Luna said in later years, "it could have been worse."

They bought a house in the countryside, with thick walls and a nice, deep, soundproof cellar. All work with correspondents on the _Quibbler_ turned into owl post. They ignored pleas from Pandora's family, saying that St. Mungo's ward was expensive but they would pay for it, why not take Luna there?

Likewise they ignored notes from Mrs. Weasley, who lived across the way and had a daughter just Luna's age, and maybe the gels could be playmates. Mrs. Weasley knew nothing of Luna's condition. Eventually the notes stopped.

Luna was six at the time. At that age, the transformations nearly killed her.

Xenophilius her father had always been good at potions, but you need to be rather more than "good" to master the Wolfsbane Potion. Xeno toiled to improve his skill, and in the meantime he made a milky potion at every waxing gibbous moon, full of sleep. He asked Luna to drink it while still human. It was so sweet it made her gag, but she drank it to please her parents.

The dosage of this medicine wasn't always precise. In the cellar, Luna would sleep, transform, and startle into wakefulness. She would stagger around and perhaps sleep again. But the potion did most of its job.

House, cellar, and potion. Those were the Lovegoods' methods for basic survival. What more could be done?

Ah, _that_ was the question that plagued them by night.

It was about this time that Xenophilius' interest in the Deathly Hallows turned into a mania. After all, what are the Hallows exactly? A wand that can cast any spell; a stone that can break the hold of time; a cloak that lets light pass through, without touching or harming the one inside.

Xeno read about the old faith of the Hallows, the people who met in secret, each carrying a pebble or a branch or a meter of cloth, and they would meditate on the nature of death and time and all that rubbish, helped along by smoke and fumes of certain herbs. And Pandora, let me tell you, she did not care for this at all.

Pandora would groan when she saw the books out again. "Those old rites won't help us, we could search all our lives and never find the Hallows—"

"Then we'll make our own!" Xenophilius would reply. He would gesture to the dilapidated secondhand loom in the corner. "We'll get Demiguise hair, and I'll make some potions, and—"

"You don't _understand_ , you're just addressing the _symptoms_ , not the disease itself!"

"At least I'm trying!" Xenophilius would yell back, louder than he meant.

"You think I'm not?"

And this was when Luna would slip out of the house, into the overgrown garden or the fields beyond. As long as she kept her house in sight—that was fine, and it was visible quite a long way away.

Picture a pale little girl. Her hair already has a little grey, but it doesn't show too much in the blonde. She walks listlessly through the grass. Sometimes she plucks flowers and weaves them into loops, garlands, just keeps her hands busy. She doesn't carry a wand—too young—but it's okay. Nothing wild will hurt her.

Luna was not slow—far from it—but her mind grew slantwise, spiralwise. Without her conscious control, her mind developed tricks to shield itself from the horror of full-moon memories, to let herself process things. Her mind turned into a mirror, reflecting itself back and trying to make sense of things backwards. She slept a lot, and dreamed even while awake.

Somehow, though, Luna would always know when Pandora had missed her. Luna would turn back homeward and Pandora would be there at the back step, waiting, to give her girl a warm hug.

Her hands—Pandora's, that is—were always stained with ink. Pandora was writing letters by the heap. I don't mean just with the _Quibbler's_ people—no, I mean with Rubeus Hagrid, and with Madame Pomfrey, and Filius Flitwick, and with Albus Dumbledore himself. Pandora, who couldn't bring herself to speak to her birth family, told these people everything about Luna's condition, and more than that, she told them that Luna was a bright girl, intelligent and curious, and Pandora would move heaven and earth to make sure her daughter got the education she deserved.

" _They say that a werewolf graduated Hogwarts less than a decade ago_ ," she wrote to them. " _Give my Luna the same opportunities. That is all that I ask_."


	2. Waxing Gibbous

)O(

Now, I take you to December of the year 1990. The war against You-Know-Who was firmly in the past, or, as Mr. Weasley might have enthusiastically offered, "in the rearview mirror." Beaded hats and purses were all the rage in London and Edinburgh. Honeydukes had just tentatively released a new product, the sugar quill, and it had made a delicious debut.

Lucius Malfoy was installed on the board of Hogwarts' school governors. Narcissa Malfoy's Christmas party was _the_ event of the season, exclusive and (if rumor was to be believed) exquisitely indulgent.

In Godric's Hollow, the wreck of the Potters' house slowly filled up with snow. Well-wishers came by, and they didn't stay long, but they left behind wreaths, bouquets, oranges by the basket and amaryllis in pots. Bathilda Bagshot cleared the offerings away after a respectful amount of time.

And Fenrir Greyback? Who knows where he was? The Sycorax prison of London had failed to keep him, and the authorities had generally relaxed their search. Let Old Man Winter hunt him down. How much harm could he do, anyway, twenty-seven days of the month? He's just a _Muggle,_ when you get right down to it.

In the Lovegood house, the Christmas lights were strung haphazardly about. No decorated tree, but pine and fir boughs added scent and color to the place.

The staff of the _Quibbler_ had dwindled something awful—the Lovegoods lost their focus and they forgot to pay their reporters and photographers, until the newspaper was a skeleton of what it once was.

In the Lovegood house, Luna (speaking of skeletons, why doesn't she grow? Why is she so dreadfully thin?) lay on her stomach in front of the fireplace, making sketches with colored pencils. Xenophilius was rereading a book about the Peverell bloodline, and keeping an eye on his girl. The kettle was on.

Pandora was upstairs, in the attic, rifling through her old notebooks. She was looking for a story. Something to fluff up the Christmas edition. Something happy, because it was Christmas and happiness would sell better.

Her gloved hands (it was very cold up there) found a particularly battered notebook, stuffed to the brim with scraps of additional paper. When she opened it, she realized it covered a brief period in time: early November, 1981.

Pandora sat on her heels, looked through the pages, and remembered. After Harry Potter had vanquished You-Know-Who (a mystery still unsolved), Pandora had gone to Godric's Hollow to investigate. Most of their _Quibbler_ staff had been too happy and too hungover to go, so Xeno managed the main office, and Pandora went west.

(Yes, my keen observer, I am going to take you backwards in time again. Thank you for your forbearance.)

Godric's Hollow had been crowded that morning. The _Daily Prophet_ had sent a team of five (though it sounded like more, because they kept arguing)—the editor-in-chief of the _Hogsmeade Herald_ had come herself—and Dublin, Edinburgh, even Brussels and Paris had sent journalists. For a small neighborhood it was quite the event. And everyone wanted to know, _how_? How in the world did Harry survive?

Pandora spent only a few minutes at the wreckage of the Potter house. She avoided all the neighbors who wanted to talk, wanted their name in the papers. She paced through the streets until she found a woman who was sitting on her front porch, looking at everything but seeing nothing. Her postbox was labeled "B. Bagshot."

Bathilda Bagshot herself, the renowned magical historian. Pandora felt herself in the presence of a kindred spirit. History, like news, is full of things that can't be known, bigger trends to notice, mysteries and imagination and facts and truth—and that's before you bring magic into it.

Pandora managed to sweet-talk Bathilda Bagshot into a short interview. Her secret weapon? A photograph of wee baby Luna. The photo made Bathilda coo and cluck and remark, such _eyes_ that child has!

It was just about tea time. Bathilda served Pandora some tea on the porch. The cake was rather stale. Bathilda admitted she hadn't been herself since word had come that the Potters—that bright and happy family—had been destroyed, the parents killed and the baby taken away. Pandora tried to step lightly on the subject.

They had drunk black tea, seasoned with fairy-bell flowers and lemon. Pandora had begun, "Regarding the events of Halloween night—"

"I don't know why You-Know-Who disappeared," Bathilda had said, interrupting. "How did the boy live, I don't know. The neighbors think he's got the makings of a great warlock—Harry, I mean—but magic doesn't show in babies, not that young."

Pandora's next question had been rather leading. "The Potters—are they one of those families with a particular gift? The Sight, or Weaving…?"

"Generations ago," Bathilda muttered. "You might have called it Crafting. You can still see the foundations of the forge out back—they didn't get the name 'Potter' out of a hat, you know. But that's faded now. James' father, Matthias, had a healing touch, but he would have gotten that from his mother's people, the Thornes." She glanced up at Pandora. "The answer is no."

"Another person in the house, then?" Pandora asked.

"I often saw a stag bounding from the back garden," Bathilda replied, smiling as if at a private joke. In a more serious voice, she said, "If you look in the remains of their house, you'll find lots of books. They were brilliant, those two. A little Eyebright Potion will show you all the Charms that Lily set around the house. Her potions chamber off the kitchen was—well, she was as clever as Cerridwen over the cauldron. Maybe together they could make something. I don't know."

"A potion…" Pandora scribbled that in her notebook.

"Not a potion!" Bathilda had snapped—Pandora's quill had started in her hand, and the page still bore the mark. "There's not an answer! There wasn't some clever _plan!_ " She fell back, and mumbled an apology for her outburst. Pandora accepted the apology… as she drank quickly to finish off her tea, she almost missed Bathilda's next remark: "I never had babies of my own, but I understand there's supposed to be a very old magic there. A mother's love for her child. Sacrifice, a knowing and willing sacrifice. That bond…I don't know. I wasn't there." She started to cry. Pandora changed the subject, finished writing in her shorthand, and thanked Bathilda for revisiting such a difficult subject.

Now Pandora read her notes once, and again. This fragmented excuse for an interview hadn't make the _Quibbler's_ pages. It was all too vague, for one. The readership in those days wasn't interested in shapeless magical theory. They wanted spells and charms and diagrams that worked right away, and page space was short.

But…

Here. 1989. Pandora stared at her own handwriting, forgotten all these years: _Knowing and willing sacrifice— Mother's love for her child_ —

And the idea broke over her like a tide.

To be continued! See you in 2019!


	3. Full Moon

)O(

Well, the keen observer will remember other werewolf cases that they have heard of—the Lupins sank all their money into finding a cure, until their boy Remus had been seen by every quack in England and their coffers were utterly empty. When Madhuri Patil was bitten, at the age of fourteen, she quit Hogwarts and retreated from the world, until her sister Nisha was her only lifeline (Nisha Patil currently works at the Werewolf Ward at St. Mungo's, and you know her daughters, Padma and Parvati).

All this is to say, everyone reacts differently to the bite. As I said, Luna took to the wild. As for her parents, well.

Xenophilius had sunk himself into numbers. He had drafted charts and tables centering on the multiples of three—a number with considerable magical promise. Xeno had charted each of Luna's transformations, and paired it with numerical significance—they had just passed number twenty-six, which was thirteen doubled, and Luna had been particularly ill afterwards. The numbers didn't lie, everyone knows thirteen is unlucky.

And Pandora regarded his notes about the number twenty-seven: nine tripled, or three times three times three. If three is a glimpse into all things—(past, present and future; heaven, earth, and underworld; body, mind, and soul)—then how complete is the understanding of three cubed? This was a powerful moment. This was a chance.

And four days until the full moon.

Boil water. Pandora set their trustiest pewter cauldron on the burner, filled it halfway, and asked Luna to fetch some fresh water from the stream. When Luna left, Pandora sent off another letter to her friend at Dover, requesting bottles of seawater as soon as could be managed, please and thank you.

Pandora hunted over the tower for heirlooms that had never been unpacked since they'd moved. A teapot, still with the stains of tea inside. A tablecloth. The November 1981 notebook. A cloak, black and stained and slipping in her vision.

"Mummy? I'm back. And, er…"

Luna held out the bucket, dripping and full, in one hand. In the other she gripped a few feathers, brown and white stippled. "I thought they were pretty…" she said, a little nervous. "Should I put them back?"

Pandora took the bucket from Luna, and gave the feathers an odd, thoughtful kind of look. "No, moonbeam," she said, "I think they're perfect."

)O(

So. Sacrifice.

Pandora had her ideas, but she did not want to die, exactly. She would sacrifice for Luna, and the power of a mother's sacrifice would give a good oomph to her magic, but Pandora was not thinking in terms of giving up her life. She would give up her mobility. She could get by with one working arm, one working leg—Xeno would help her. She would never bear more children—if she and Xeno wanted more, they could adopt. She would never dream again, maybe she'd give up her ability to say the words "beautiful," "love," "interesting"… she'd give up anything for Luna.

But her life entire? Leave Luna without a mother, Xeno without a partner?

Pandora hoped it would not come to that.

She sat by the pewter cauldron, filled with rainwater and springwater. With a large pair of scissors she cut apart the black cloak that had been soaked in Deflecting Drafts, cut it into manageable triangle pieces, and fed them into the water. She stirred it with the feathers that Luna had brought, and tossed them in, too.

The notebook from 1981—what a happy time that had been. Everyone had believed in a new, brighter future. Pandora tore out pages and dropped them into the water. The ink melted into the water, the paper turned into mush. She asked Xeno to fetch their silver ladle, but it was Luna who brought it—"good girl," Pandora said, "what a sweet girl you are." Luna smiled, and rubbed at her hands—the silver stung her a little. Werewolf blood took badly to the moon's metal.

Pandora stirred it up, and set the heat to simmer, and let it cook down for awhile.

The next morning, she received an owl—actually two owls, carrying a case with two bottles of seawater, and a friendly Christmas note from her old friend. Pandora added the seawater to the cauldron, and gave it another vigorous stir.

By the potions-making counter, Pandora reviewed their dwindling potion supplies. In a mortar and pestle, she crushed ironwood bark with snow-apple peels. She reached for the shrubby jasmine, and eventually just took one blossom, and added it into the pestle. Moth wings. As she added it to the cauldron she was uncomfortably aware that she was making this up as she went along. One scant unicorn hair—she draped it on the simmering potion, which began to froth and put out blue-white bubbles.

She cautioned Luna to keep away from the cauldron, but asked Xeno if he could please give it a stir now and again. Pandora moved into the living room and studied their tablecloth.

It had been a wedding gift from her father. Pandora and Xeno had been married in autumn. By that point, Pandora was visibly, accidentally pregnant. Up until then, neither she nor Xeno had thought about marriage, but they'd decided to give the whole family thing a shot, anyway, with the war on who knew when they'd get another chance? So they'd gotten hitched, a bit of a rush job, but the Ollivanders were no strangers to eccentricity. (Xenophilius of the self-chosen name had not spoken to his family in years.)

And Pandora's father had presented them with a tablecloth, an old, old family heirloom. It was exquisite lace, hand-worked, and he said it was spell-woven for good health and good luck. Pandora had cried a little (she'd been pregnant and would cry at the drop of a hat, but it was genuinely moving) and hugged her father, Garrick.

The tablecloth had never actually graced a table at the Lovegood's home. Instead, Pandora had strung it into a canopy, and had hung it over Luna's cot, with a moon and stars made of silver paper for a mobile.

She'd never taken a scissors to it. And Pandora decided she wouldn't start now. She folded it carefully and fed it into the pewter cauldron. The potion took on the color of old lace, of parchment that had been touched and read often. As the tablecloth unraveled, strange images danced on the potion's surface—blooming flowers, wine and champagne toasted over and over. Pandora took notes on this, and decided to let it rest for the night.

When she rose early the next morning, the yellowed-ivory color had deepened and brightened to gold. Pandora decided that was a good sign.

In a smaller cauldron, she prepared an emetic potion, according to their most trusted recipe. Just in case… just in case… a little medical preparation, in case Luna had a bad reaction.

But what next? What next? Think, Pandora, think…

She asked Xeno to look after the potion (again), kissed Luna on the forehead, and headed out the door. Apparated to Diagon Alley. The apothecary, Missus Vetiver, had known Pandora all her life, and invited her for a spot of tea and a chat, to catch up, but Pandora shook her head, said another time, and made her purchases. The herbs cost more than they should have—well, it was Midwinter, Missus Vetiver said, hard to get anything fresh—but it would do. The potion would change things.

Missus Vetiver rang up Pandora's purchase, and tucked in some homemade candy. It was beet-sugar red and tasted like gingerbread and winter holidays. Pandora said she couldn't afford it, but Missus Vetiver insisted it was a gift—"for your little girl," she added. "I'd love to see her sometime."

Pandora almost cried, but swallowed down the lump in her throat and said, "She's growing up well. She's going to be a brilliant woman."

"If she's your daughter, how could she be anything else?" And Missus Vetiver waved Pandora out of the shop.

Pandora went home, presented the candy with due ceremony to Luna, and then went right back to the potions-making counter. She'd bought a bundle of wolfsbane, wrapped up in twine, and Ixora berries, imported from Thailand. There were herbs more familiar to English soil—avian-fennel, fallen-angelica. Plants harvested in the wild, like feral rose and the elusive gasping-thistle. Time to chop it all with silver blades, chop it into equal-sized pieces so they would all cook at the same time. Into the potion. Add more water. Good.

Almost. Almost.

She took up the teapot and dusted it. It was a fine bit of jasperware, light blue with a trim of white flowers. She remembered she'd bought it at an estate sale, just a week after she'd moved into her first flat, out of her parents' house. Hogwarts' fight song was still in her ears, and she'd been full of hope, eager to meet her future. She stared at the teapot a moment, remembering.

An appropriate symbol, she decided. She was working to salvage Luna's future.


	4. Sunrise

"Morning of the full moon, five forty-five a.m. Potion resembles a cup of strong loose-leaf tea. Faint floral odor.

Other effects: there are no birds singing in range of our house. The silence is eerie. Luna hates the potion, says the smell turns her stomach. I'm afraid. What if this is poison? I could kill Luna on the strength of a gut feeling.

I've prepared an emetic dose. If Luna has a bad effect, I will give her the dose, she'll vomit the potion, and we'll go to St. Mungo's as fast as possible.

What if they put me on trial for child abuse?

Maybe I will deserve it. But I want to see this through. If I can save Luna, it will be worthwhile. Someday she'll be an old woman, with a rich life behind her, and she'll smile at the memory of the twenty-seven months when she was a werewolf. Just a memory.

Noon. I'll explain to Luna the goal of my experiment. If she doesn't agree, I'll dilute the magic away with cloudweed and salt until it's just a messy tea, and dispose of it safely.

One thirty p.m. We just had lunch. Luna agreed to try the potion. She insisted on using the cellar, for safety. I have the emetic ready. I'm so proud of her, my brave girl.

Three-thirty p.m. We'll have tea. Weather remains cold and overcast; still no birdsong. Check the notes from Godric's Hollow again. Luna's dusting the nice jasperware. Xeno's upstairs. We're going to the cellar.

The words stopped. Luna Lovegood took a breath and closed the notebook in her hands. "My mother's notes end there," she said.

She was talking to Ginny Weasley; they were sitting close together, knee to knee, in a westward alcove in Hogwarts Castle.

Let's back up.

It was the morning of July 2nd, 1997. Less than three days ago, Hogwarts had been attacked by Death Eaters, and Headmaster Dumbledore had been murdered. Today the Hogwarts Express would take the students home, or at least back to London. Neither girl had been able to sleep, and the secure, safe routines of Hogwarts had been reduced to shambles. So, around midnight, Ginny had found Luna—or rather, Luna waited in the Portrait Hall until Ginny left the Gryffindor common room. Luna had one blanket around her shoulders, another folded on her knees. As she handed that second blanket to Ginny, a weathered, overstuffed little notebook came into sight in Luna's other hand.

Ginny didn't ask how Luna knew to wait for her—Luna had her ways of knowing these things. Instead, Ginny asked, "What's that notebook?"

"It was my mother's," Luna replied. In response to Ginny's confused look, Luna added, "It's a long story, but I think you'll be interested. Let's go to the garden window."

Equidistant between the Gryffindor and Ravenclaw common rooms was a window alcove that looked west, with a hanging lamp. This little spot was Ginny and Luna's particular retreat during school days, when things were normal.

As she clambered into her spot, Ginny said to Luna, "It's weird, being here in the middle of the night. Can't see the garden at all." The stained glass showed a symmetrical garden, and it gleamed in afternoon light. The fountain seemed to bubble, the hares seemed ready to leap, the flowers appeared more than alive. But now it was utterly black.

Luna still looked at the window as if she could see through it, to the forest and mountains beyond.

"You alright?" Ginny asked her. "You're awful quiet."

A sigh, and Luna turned to her. "I'm just thinking a lot. And I'm afraid. Afraid of what I'm going to tell you."

Ginny stared at her a moment, then put a hand on hers. "Luna, you can tell me anything. Or, you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"It's important," Luna said. "It has to do with your brother…"

"Which one?" Ginny asked, half-automatically.

"Bill."

Ginny took a breath. "You don't have to worry. After Greyback's attack he mostly slept it off… he's been transferred to St. Mungo's. The Healers say he's doing well. I got an owl just a few hours ago."

"He's not going to be the same," Luna said. "I don't know what's going to happen to him—"

"No one does."

"But I might be able to help." Ginny turned to her in surprise. "There are things my dad and I know, and I've never told anyone in my life, but you're my best friend. I want you to know. I don't even know how to say…" Luna looked down at the notebook in her lap, and ran a hand over its cover, "… so I thought my mum could help." She closed her eyes. "Please don't interrupt me because I'm really scared to say this, so I'll just start now and then I'll answer any questions you have. When I'm finished."

Ginny agreed, now confused but determined—she would honor Luna's courage.

Luna opened the notebook fourteen pages from the last entry, and began to read. Pandora Lovegood had started these entries by describing her daughter's curse, how she had been taken by Fenrir Greyback and recovered, but was now a werewolf. A summary of the visit to Godric's Hollow, the notes from Ms. Bagshot's interview, and Pandora's idea that she could heal Luna by a maternal sacrifice. The days ticked down to the full moon and the potion developed, until the last entry.

By now the window was a bit illuminated again; the sun was coming up on the other side of the castle, the sky was remembering what brightness was. Luna closed the book and finally dared to look at Ginny. Ginny's brown eyes were wide, and her hands were gripping the blanket tightly.

"Ginny, please talk to me, I need to know what you think," Luna said, and her voice cracked a little.

"I'm just… I can't believe… you've talked about your mother, but I didn't realize…" Ginny gave her head a little shake. Then in a firmer voice, she took Luna by the hand. "Luna, you've got nothing to be afraid of. You're my friend, like it or not."

A smile broke over Luna's face, and she even laughed a little. Then she started to shiver uncontrollably, and pulled herself deeper into her blanket. Ginny tried to offer her own blanket, but Luna shook her head. Ginny moved so that she and Luna were sitting shoulder to shoulder. "That's a little warmer," said Ginny.

"I don't know why I started shivering like that," Luna said, "it's a fascinating physiological response."

"It's hard to share secrets. Especially one like… that. I mean, I used to hate werewolves too, until I learned about Professor Lupin, and I'm so ashamed of that now. I had no idea that you were…" she glanced over. "Are…?"

Luna was looking at her knees. "My mother died to cure me. I've never turned into a wolf since. But I can't say that I'm not a werewolf."

She paused. Ginny said, "Observe that I'm not running away, screaming."

That got a smile out of her. Luna went on, "I can't wear silver jewelry. Wolfsbane gives me a rash. When it's a full moon, I can smell, see, and hear better, and I feel too restless to sleep. Sometimes I just sit up and read all night—sometimes I have to get out of the castle and walk around outside, in the night air."

"You've never gotten caught?"

"Not yet." Luna shrugged.

"Do you go to the Forest?"

"Sometimes. It's not like animals hurt me—I think that when the thestrals see me, they see a creature like them."

"You've always been able to see thestrals…" Ginny's voice trailed off. She looked sidelong at Luna, who met her eye evenly. Ginny was aware of a horrible question, the very worst thing to ask, which was exactly why she had an urge to ask it—

How exactly had Pandora Lovegood died?

Ginny swallowed the question down and the moment passed. Luna spoke as if there had been no interruption, "Then again, in the Forest, maybe I naturally avoid the places that are really dangerous. Instinct, you know. All that I meant to say—oh, I could have said this from the start, I could have said it simpler—"

"Don't worry about it," said Ginny, who was used to Luna's digressions.

"There's a gray space between human and werewolf. It's not always so clear-cut as wizards think. I live in that space, and now, your brother Bill does, too. You've been good to me—you and Ron, and I don't know Bill, but I want to help him because he's part of your family."

Haltingly, Ginny asked, "Who else knows about this?"

"My father. Dumbledore knew—Mum wrote to him. Professor Flitwick and Madame Pomfrey. Healer Patil, at St. Mungo's. My grandfather knows… or knew, I guess … and some of my mother's friends."

"Is that all?"

"Well, the records are there for anyone who wants to look it up. I was admitted to St. Mungo's with a werewolf bite. I stopped transforming at age nine, and it's at ten that you're supposed to put your name down for the Werewolf Registry. I didn't. If anyone checked the records, they'd see, but the Ministry's bureaucracy is deliberately meant to make people too tired to look."

Ginny sat back and shook her head. "I just have a hard time getting this square. You always talk about the truth, the truth is sacred, it's the most important thing to find, and once found, we have a duty to share it. But you… you have the cure for lycanthropy. You know. There are wizards and witches who would do anything to learn that, and you're keeping it secret."

"You're an exception," Luna said. "And I ask that you keep it quiet. Can Bill keep a secret?"

"Yes."

A bird began to sing outside, and Luna turned towards the window, as if that birdsong was the most fascinating noise in the world. She didn't speak. After awhile, Ginny felt compelled to break the silence.

"When I was a kid, I worked it all out real carefully, which of my brothers I can trust to do what. I needed to know who can keep a secret. Bill's good with secrets, but Charlie will slip up unless you force him to make a pinky promise. The twins might go either way—depends on what they think will be funny."

If Luna noticed that Ginny had not mentioned her third brother, she didn't bring it up. "And Ron?"

"Yes. He keeps secrets." Ginny rubbed at her eyes. "It was so important to me, keeping track of my brothers and how much each one could be a friend. I used to think about that girl who lived across the field in the rook-shaped house and wonder, we live so close by, why won't she be my friend?"

"I'm sorry."

"Well, it's fine now," Her voice was a bit gruff.

Luna pulled her blanket tighter around her. "You said I know the cure for lycanthropy, but that's not precisely true. I'm not cured. I just don't change. And that's enough for me to live in the world, that's what my mum wanted. But it cost her life. As it says in her notes—she didn't want it to come to that. And you may notice, the potion-making was a rather improvised method. Hardly something a laboratory can reproduce."

Despite herself, Ginny smiled.

"I witnessed the spell, I was part of it. The magic lives in me just like the werewolf does. I know, but how can I ask this of anyone else? To even experiment." She leaned her head against the glass of the window. "It's horrible, like a deal you'd make at a crossroads. The good news, you get your wish, you get your future. The bad news, the person who loved you enough to die for you…" she didn't finish.

Ginny didn't know what to say. She leaned her head on Luna's shoulder—it was still too cold to stretch out an arm from the blanket. Now the stained glass window was clearly visible—the sun was up.

"Probably they're setting out breakfast downstairs," said Ginny. "Want to head down?"

"I'll have to put the notebook back first," said Luna. "Just to keep it safe."

"Sure. God, I could murder a cuppa."

"There's no real answer, Ginny."

"Come again?"

"There's no answer I can offer. I'm sort of cured, and Mum's dead, and sometimes I wish things were different. I don't know what it means, and I can't make up a meaning. I still feel very sad about it sometimes. But right now, my experience is a little useful. Your family is entering a gray area, and I can help you." She turned and faced her friend.

Ginny slipped her hand into Luna's. "I'm glad to have your help. I'm glad you're my friend, and I'm honored that you trust me. Let's get breakfast." Then Ginny slid out of the alcove, and Luna was pulled along after her.

"The garden looks nice in the morning," Luna pointed out, lingering a moment.

"Yeah. Different light, different colors," Ginny agreed. Hanging out with Luna for a few years had a funny way of rubbing off on you.

They headed towards Ravenclaw Tower. Ginny said, "When we get around to our world tour, and you conduct your magizoological research, you'll have a bit of an edge, if the Forest is anything to go by."

"I'll only find out once I'm gone," Luna replied absently.

"That sounds like a song lyric," said Ginny as they reached the common room door. "I'll sit out here and compose the rest, and then we'll send an owl to the Weird Sisters and make our fortune." She grinned and gave Luna a wink.

Luna wasn't sure if Ginny was telling the truth—she suspected that Ginny wrote occasional poetry, but the redhead had not yet admitted to it. At any rate, Luna returned the smile before entering her common room.

As she passed through the door, Luna's mind began to spiral into different directions. She had just shared a profound, dangerous secret, and Ginny still seemed to be her friend. No, was—Luna was getting better at trusting the good intentions of people around. Ginny had said she was still Luna's friend, and Ginny's word was as good as gold, as sure as sunlight.

But the future, though. There might be a consequence, a reverberation, a ripple down the line, set into motion by telling the truth. Well, no use worrying about it today.

Another part of Luna's mind observed the state of the Ravenclaw common room, already crowded at this dismal hour. Students were milling about, either talking in threes and fours, or else thumbing through the old books that were in the House collection. Luna knew just what they were after—they were hunting a story, a poem, an aphorism that would help them make sense of this world. Luna was familiar with the feeling, and wished her Housemates well.

Someone had opened a window to let a little freshness into the air. The mountains looked beautiful today, and the moon was visible, just sinking into the west. Years and years ago, Pandora-her-mother had looked at this view, and been comforted by it. Luna pressed the notebook to her heart as she climbed the stairwell. Another part of her mind began to think that strong tea sounded excellent, perhaps with porridge and jam.

Luna's trunk was nearly all packed. She knelt down beside it. Before she put away Pandora's journal, she ran her fingers one last time over the cover. The paper had a marbled pattern on it, faded a little now. Luna tucked it back into its place, away from the sunlight—sunlight had a terrible way of destroying paper.

The sun—the morning—the new day. Luna looked up, so the sunbeam filled her vision. Sunlight reflected on the moon, reflected in her eyes. A new day. A day to go home. A day to be with Ginny. A day to meet with gratitude. Pandora's gift, this day, the present.

"Thanks, Mum," Luna whispered. Then the moment passed and she got to her feet, to meet Ginny and get breakfast.

A/N: Thank you for reading!


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